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Thursday May 3, 2012

I Am Ten Years Old Again

I’m 10 years old again, and I’m reading a comic book. It’s 1978, and the ads in this book are the stuff any 10-year-old covets: X-ray glasses, footlockers full of plastic army men, and a game, some crazy game about a giant tank.

One player gets to be the giant tank. Giant? It’s less a tank and more a fortress on-the-go, a fully tricked-out armored cavalry division unto itself, only bigger, tougher, and more wonderful. The other player gets an entire army.

10-year-old me looks at this game, and thinks to himself “it’s not fair.” Because it’s not. One guy gets this “vehicle” so monstrous that it can only be named after a monster, while the other player just gets a plain old army. Also, it’s not fair because I’m 10, and Dad won’t let me buy this.

I’m 44 now. The game was Ogre, and I remember it as the game that was too cool, too dangerous, too awesome for my parents to let me have. No game could possibly live up to the memory forged in the crucible of a 10-year-old boy’s imagination.

But I will, because my friend Steve is making a version of the game that CAN clear the bar set by 10-year-old Howard. It’s an expensive game, sure, but that’s because it’s enormous. The box is 21 inches by x 18 inches and is four inches deep. That’s 90% of the way to being a full cubic foot of gaming material: cool, dangerous, awesome gaming material.

Here’s the catch: the very most cool, dangerous, awesome version of the awesomeness that is Ogre: Designer’s Edition is only available if you support it on Kickstarter, and you only have a week before that opportunity is gone. Oh, you can get the Designer Edition through your FLGS, and it is certainly awesome, but some of the extras are only for supporters. Check the Kickstarter page for details.

(Note: I must confess a little reluctance when I point you folks at a $100 game just two weeks before I open pre-orders on my next book, but if you’re geeking out half as hard as I am over Ogre I’ll feel bad inside if you miss this opportunity.)

I played the video below for my 10-year-old son (okay, he’s nine, but let’s work the symmetry angle) and his eyes got wide. “I want that.” He looked at me. “It’s probably too expensive.”

Son, I’m a darn sight cooler than my Dad was. I’m getting a copy for me, but I will share. It will be too cool, too dangerous, too awesome for me NOT to share.